If you remember, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report, formed a Super PAC so he could collect gobs of money to influence the upcoming presidential election. Well, Colbert found out about Karl Rove's Super PAC, "American Crossroads" and his non-profit 501 (c) (4) corporation called Crossroads GPS which gets millions from anonymous donors. So, Colbert decides to form his own 501 (c) (4) with the purpose to "educate." This nonprofit can get millions without disclosing its donors which maybe other corporations. Anyway, I'm going to embed the whole thirty minute show since Stephen is brilliant in showing how anonymous money is going hurt in our democracy. Of course, he's funny in doing it.
Stephen in a "Dating Game" spoof, tries to select a billionaire to give his new 501 (c) (4) millions of dollars. Guess who are the first two billionaires. Kevin Kline hosts.
A picture from "The Dark Knight Rises" of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman has leaked. Her costume looks goofy. Is it as bad as Halle Berry's Catwoman costume? No. But the problem is the mask. It looks like she has a mask that just covers her eyes and some funny cat ears popping from the back of her head. That's just dumb. I mean any person will be able to tell who she is. The mask should be similar to Batman's. Yeah, that maybe too similar but it would make sense. Nobody would be able to guess her identity if she had such a mask. Perhaps put the ears closer to the head. Anyway, check it out for yourself.
I tried to go to the Cincinnati Bengals game today. Got down there about sometime in the middle of the second quarter. All I needed was one ticket. So this scalper in a Minnesota Vikings jersey tried to sell me four tickets for one hundred and sixty dollars. When I tried to negotiate for one ticket for twenty five dollars, the trash talking guy angrily told me "Why are you wasting my time?" Well, dude, with today's Bengals loss, you're going to be eating a lot more tickets in the future.
And by the way, if you're wondering why I didn't go to the Bengals box office. Well, back in 2003, I would buy tickets from the box office because I was patriotic. Yeah, I wanted the Bengals to have my money rather than a scalper. Now, since owner Mike Brown refuses to change to improve his product, I'm going to avoid giving him my money. IF he doesn't hire a general manager or more scouts, I will refuse to help him. I will also refuse to pay full price for a ticket.
But what about the game? Classic Bengals loss. The team twice got into the red zone, i.e. within the twenty yard line of the endzone. The only got two field goals. The Bengals went one for ten on third down conversions. Then in the fourth quarter, rookie quarterback Andy Dalton threw two interceptions. Sigh. Ballgame. Bengals lose to the San Francisco 49ers again, 13-8.
Wait till next week. Here comes the undefeated Buffalo Bills. Remember what happened last year when the Bills came back from a 31-14 deficit? They are coming off a great victory against the New England Patriots. Oy vey. At least the Cincinnati Reds finally beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4.
I'm a fan of the Cincinnati Reds, so when I went to see the baseball film Moneyball, I had some knowledge of the material. The movie is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis about Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane. The book itself is based on the statistical theories of Bill James.
Now, Bill James as the movie correctly points out was a security guard at Stokley Van Camp Pork and Beans when he started writing on a different approach on evaluating players. This different approach which he would call sabermetrics emphasized the on base percentage of a player. What that means is how often a player gets on base, either through a hit or walk. Not everything in sabermetrics is that logical or non-controversial. The approach diminishes strikeouts as just another out. But if you strikeout, you can't get a hit or get on with an error. And when James commented that Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson was more lucky than talented, Sparky replied that James was a, "a fat little bearded man who knows nothing about nothing."
Anyway, the movie starts out in 2001. The cash strapped Oakland A's have just lost in the playoffs to the very rich New York Yankees. At the end of the season, the A's will lose three major players to free agency Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and reliever Jason Isringhausen. A's GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) tries to beg for more money from the team's owner for the 2002 season but is turned down. Later he goes to the office of Cleveland Indians to personally engage in trade talks to get players to replace the three. It's there he notices that an Indians executive, Peter Brand, (Jonah Hill) has the ear of the Indians GM. Beane later confronts Brand, who by the way is a fictional character, about how he analyzes players. Brand informs Beane of a new way to analyze players, one that uses particular statistics. Beane hires Brand to assist him in Oakland.
It's at the meeting of A's scouts with Beane and Brand that they challenge baseball's conventional wisdom. In the old ways, goofy things like how pretty a player's girlfriend would come into an evaluation. Now Brand would bring sabermetrics directly into picking players. In a scene reminiscent from the movie Major League (1989) where Vegas showgirl Rachel Phelps picks a bunch of unknowns, Beane and Brand pick a group of pedestrian players to replace stars Giambi, Damon and Isringhausen. And it's just as funny. The biggest unconventional pick is the choice of Scott Hatteberg, a washed up catcher to play first base. The attraction of Hatteberg? He gets on base. But with these radical picks, the A's go on to win 103 games.
Screenplay writers Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List) have crafted a story that captures the conflict of philosophies. It's old vs. new. That concept is dramatized extremely well in the fight between Beane and A's manager Art Howe's (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) refusal to play Hatteberg. Director Bennett Miller gives the movie a documentary feel. And thankfully, he stays out of the way of the performances.
And speaking of performances, two stand out. First, I would have thought that Phillip Seymour Hoffman would have been a terrible choice to play manager Art Howe. But he makes Howe believable as self absorbed, conservative and stubborn baseball man. Brad Pitt is now 47. He reminds me of a mature Robert Redford. This film is his best performance to date. He beautifully makes his Beane a confused, stressed and eventually a courageous man. It's a performance that is Oscar worthy.
But if you know anything about baseball, how accurate is Moneyball? Did sabermetrics make the Oakland A's of 2002? And while I can agree with the ideal of having a good on base percentage, there's more to baseball than cold statistics. The most important thing in baseball is pitching. One thing the movie does not reflect is that the A's hit gold when they developed three aces. They were Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. The great seasons that the A's had from 2001 to 2003 were due to no small part by the pitching of these three.
Money is still very important in major league baseball. The A's unable to keep pace financially have been not very good from 2007 to the present. One of the funniest lines in this comedy-drama is at the end. The movie ends with the line that the Boston Red Sox won a World Series in 2004 by using sabermetrics. Sort of. The Boston Red Sox had twice the payroll of the A's. (Street and Smith's Baseball 2005 Yearbook, pg. 98) It's money that enables big market teams like the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees, and the Boston Red Sox to make the playoffs. And the importance of money was readily proved this year. The Milwaukee Brewers spent money to get ace Zack Greineke and solid starting pitcher Shaun Marcum. The result? The Brewers have just won the NL Central Division.
Moneyball is only partially accurate in its view on how to field a winning baseball team. But as a film it does a good job showing a man's struggle to overcome adversity. The grade is B +.
Reading the Internet lately, business analysts have been praising Netflix's decision to split its movie delivery service into two entities. (Reuters story.) One will be Netflix and will stream movies. The other will be Qwikster which will continue to mail DVD movies. Now all this comes after Netflix initially raised prices to be part of both streaming and the DVD mail service. To get Qwikster, you'll have to set up a separate account with them. And if you read articles on Qwikster, it's set up to either die or be sold.
I can't agree with the business analysts. While I agree that the future of viewing movies at home is going to be Internet streaming, the selection of movies for streaming isn't there yet. The advantage of Netflix was the huge library. If a certain movie wasn't available online, at least you could get it via the mail. Now if you look at Netflix right now, the selection is terrible without the DVD option. Try to get Casablanca (1943) or in my case, try to get Transformers (2007) on Netflix since I'm the only man on the planet that hasn't seen it. You have to go the DVD route which means I will have to open another account with Qwikster.
But is Netflix currently worth your money? I say, "sort of." At $7.99 a month, you don't' get much in movie selection. I mean many movies that are older than one year old aren't currently available. See Casablanca. There are some great films like Pulp Fiction (1995) or Patton (1970). But there seems to be more obscure movies like "The Cleaner" (2007) or the religious movies like "Marriage Retreat" (2011) starring Jeff Fahey and Victoria Jackson?! It's the lack of selection that will allow a competitor with a better online library AND a DVD service if the movie is not online to perhaps do to Neflix what it did to Blockbuster.
Now that it looks like Cincinnati Bengals Jerome Simpson was involved in trafficking a load of marijuana, the Bengals have offered a new service to entice fans to buy season tickets. Here's my interview with Bengals owner Mike Brown.
Cheek: Do you have any comment on the allegation of the large marijuana shipment sent to Jerome Simpsons' house?
Brown: It's all part of the Bengals way.
Cheek: How's that?
Brown: I like my players to be criminals. You do know since 2000, the Cincinnati Bengals have had the most players arrested in the NFL. (True fact. Check it out.)
Cheek: I'm sorry did you say that you want your players to be crooks? What the f_ck??
Brown: Yeah. Two reasons. I can pay a NFL player much less if he's tainted. You know like a crook. None of those "winning teams" sign criminals.
Cheek: Yeah, but those teams do win. Look at the New England Patriots.
Brown: Winning, schminning. Look at how much money I'm making.
Cheek: I'm getting a headache. What is the second reason for having criminals on the team?
Brown: I've noticed we're not selling out at the stadium. So, the Cincinnati Bengals will offer a new service to season ticket holders. If you're a season ticket holder, you get an app for your cell phone. It's called "THE CINCINNATI BENGALS CRIMINAL WARNING." If you go to the app, it will warn you when a Cincinnati Bengals will commit a crime. If you're a woman, it will save you from getting sexually assaulted by a Bengal. If you're at a night club, it will warn you that a Bengal is in the bar, and tell you to get the hell out of there before a Bengal will beat you to a bloody pulp. Hey, check out what our Cedric Benson did to his roommate.SCARED PEOPLE OF CINCINNATI? YOU BETTER BE. IF YOU DON'T BUY TICKETS, I'LL UNLEASH THE BENGALS ON YOU. And before you poor people scream about not being able to afford to buy tickets, once we sell out, the service will be available for a minimal cost to users of the Internet.
Cheek: Sounds like you're trying to extort money from the people of Cincinnati.
Brown: How do you think I got the Bengals stadium built?
Cheek: I'm kind of sick. Anything else?
Brown: Please embed the video of where we get our players.
Cheek: Okay. Below is the secret video of where the Bengals get their players.
Remember the 1998 Saturday Night Live skit, Schweddy Balls? (Video below.) It was a classic Christmas piece in which two clueless NPR hosts interview a gourmet entrepreneur named Pete Schweddy (Alec Baldwin) about his food balls. Well, Ben and Jerry's is coming out with a new ice cream inspired by the skit called Schweddy Balls. It's a rum flavored concoction to coincide with SNL's new season.
Of course, leave it to conservatives to spoil the fun. An offshoot of the conservative American Family Association, One Million Moms is urging a boycott of Schweddy Balls. (Huffington Post story.) They obviously don't like Schweddy Balls. I'm guessing that One Million Moms is going to be upset how we eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I mean do we eat Schweddy Balls? Do we lick Schweddy Balls? Or do we suck Schweddy Balls?
The inspiration for Ben and Jerry's Schweddy Balls.
Sarah Palin described bloggers as people in their pajamas sitting in their mother's basement. Well, Sarah I sometimes blog in my pajamas. Your comment has inspired a great name for this blog. Thanks, Sarah.
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